The man charged with shooting three young men of Palestinian descent in 2023 in Burlington, Vt., was found guilty of three counts of attempted second-degree murder on Monday.
Lawyers for the man, Jason Eaton, 51, had argued that he was suffering from a delusional disorder at the time and was hearing messages ordering him to shoot the men. The jury rejected their argument that Mr. Eaton was not criminally responsible for his actions because he was mentally ill.
The shootings, which took place two days after Thanksgiving, blocks from the bucolic campus of the University of Vermont, stunned residents of Burlington. The three victims, all 20-year-old college students at the time, were close friends spending the holiday weekend together at the Burlington home of one of their relatives.
Hisham Awartani, then a student at Brown University, was shot in the spine and paralyzed from the chest down. Tahseen Ali Ahmad, a student at Trinity College, was shot in the chest. Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College, was shot in the backside. The three had been friends since their childhood in the West Bank.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
